I absolutely LOVE this thread!! unfortunately, my prom days ended too last year. so i've adopted my friends little sister so i have a reason to make another pretty dress.anyway, i've already posted my prom dress(es), so here's my winterformal one.. my date and i went shopping together so we could find some nice matching clothes for him, and the photo company ended up using it in some of their advertisements!

PINK BOW/BELT:imagine you're making a pink satin tube. you would make it with a rectangle, and sew the long sides together, right sides together. but what i did was i cut the pink satin rectangle slightly wider than normal, and then cut the long sides .... oh screw this.

here's a picture:

as long as both red lines along the weird shape of fabric are the same length, you can sew them together and create 3-d-ness, or texture, etc. i put the seam against the skirt so you can't see it. then sewed it to the skirt in a bunched/crumpled way and stitched it on in zigzags. <hope that made some sense... any sense at all>

PLEATS:i cut the legs off right below the zipper. instead of seam ripping, i cut the legs apart into four pieces so that each piece had the whole seam still attached, and some fabric. i can make a horrible drawing of this if needed, but it doesnt affect the actual pleating, so don't worry. i folded and pinned the leg pieces in an accordian manner, and sewed the folds along the edges. (this is so that i never have to iron, and the pleats stay as they are) and then sewed the pleats to the top part.

pinkkittypiper: these would be perfect to wear over pants because i never sewed the four leg panels together, so even though the four panels are overlapped, if i sit down, the pleats open up and its a bit scandalous

this is the back <my name is saki jane and the elephant was inspired by/stolen from pipu>

this is the inside.

i just moved to japan and don't have a sewing machine (yet!) so i had to do this by hand.. pain in the ass/possibly good opportunity to practice embroidery i just had to make one though because it looked so handy and cute (even though i left all my needles in america)